‘Verbatim: The Ferguson Case’

This short video juxtaposes the reenacted testimony of two key witnesses in the shooting of the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, MO.Published OnAug. 5, 2015

By now, most Americans have heard of Ferguson, Mo.: on Aug. 9, 2014, a white police officer, Darren Wilson, shot an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, on a street in that suburb of St. Louis. One year later, the word “Ferguson” has become indelibly linked to the charged conversation about racial justice in the United States. Like many Americans, I followed the case and ensuing protests, absorbing a barrage of commentary from news sources and my social networks. And yet as the months wore on, and the officer was not indicted, I realized that I (perhaps like many others), was never clear on the details: What exactly happened in Ferguson the day Mr. Brown was shot?

I sought to find an answer somewhere in the thousands of pages of transcripts and evidence eventually released by the St. Louis County prosecutor. Diving in, I was struck by the divergent accounts of the encounter between Mr. Brown and Officer Wilson. The testimony led me to an unexpected conclusion: The story of what happened in Ferguson, as told through these documents, was certainly tragic, but was also much more complicated than I’d previously understood.

In this Op-Doc video, I decided to share that story and the voices of those who lived it in their own words, juxtaposing key excerpts from the depositions and using actors to re-enact the testimony. I focused on the pivotal moment in the case: the brief and fatal encounter between Officer Wilson and Mr. Brown, as told by the officer himself and Mr. Brown’s friend, Dorian Johnson, who was with Mr. Brown when he was shot. I have presented the dialogue verbatim — no words have been changed from the two witnesses’ original grand jury transcripts (hundreds of pages between them), though the transcripts have been condensed and edited for length and clarity. My intent is to add to viewers’ understanding of the story in as balanced a way as possible, remaining truthful to the facts, context and chronology of the testimony. I hope that when you watch this film, you can put yourself in the position of that grand jury, seeing and interpreting the testimony as they did.

In doing so, maybe we can come a little closer to understanding this flash point in a nightmarish year of violence, in which unarmed people of color were killed by police officers with appalling frequency. Perhaps if we have a better sense of the “who, what, where and when,” we may come a small step closer to understanding “why.”

Note to Readers:

This is the second installment of a series, presented by Op-Docs, that transforms verbatim (word for word) legal transcripts into dramatic performances. Here you will find recreations of actual events from the halls of law and government. You, our readers, can help us find material for future episodes. Have you come across court trials, depositions or government hearings that you think are surprising, bizarre or of historical consequence — and lend themselves to performance? We especially seek original, publicly available transcripts, along with details about the source. Email us at opinion.video@nytimes.com and include “Verbatim” in the subject line.